{"id":155160,"date":"2025-06-29T16:58:54","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T16:58:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/senate-advances-massive-bill-for-trumps-agenda-after-gop-leaders-sway-holdouts-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2025-06-29T16:58:54","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T16:58:54","slug":"senate-advances-massive-bill-for-trumps-agenda-after-gop-leaders-sway-holdouts-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/senate-advances-massive-bill-for-trumps-agenda-after-gop-leaders-sway-holdouts-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate advances massive bill for Trump's agenda after GOP leaders sway holdouts – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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WASHINGTON \u2014 The Republican-led Senate on Saturday night advanced a sweeping domestic policy package for President Donald Trump\u2019s agenda after a dramatic hourslong vote, moving it one step closer to passage.
The vote was 51-49, with two Republicans \u2014 Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky \u2014 joining all Democrats in opposition.
Saturday\u2019s procedural vote was delayed for hours as party leaders scrambled to resolve internal disputes. And it hung on a knife\u2019s edge for more than three hours on the floor, as a handful Republicans \u2014 Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rick Scott of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming \u2014 withheld their votes.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and other GOP leaders were ultimately able to win them over, teeing up a vote on final passage in the coming days. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who initially opposed the motion to proceed, also ended up switching his vote. Johnson said the holdouts secured a vote on an amendment that would make it more difficult for single, childless able-bodied individuals to receive Medicaid.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., forced a reading<\/a> of the entire bill on the floor of the chamber, which began Saturday night and continued into Sunday. After that, there will be up to 20 hours of debate before a process in which senators can offer unlimited amendments; and then a final vote.
On Sunday morning, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office published an analysis<\/a> finding that the Senate bill would increase the U.S. national debt by $3.3 trillion over the next 10 years. It found that revenues would fall by about $4.5 trillion and spending could be cut by $1.2 trillion over a debate, relative to current law.
Vice President JD Vance traveled to the Capitol on Saturday evening in case his vote was needed to break a 50-50 tie. He also met with the Republican holdouts while Trump worked the phones from the Oval Office, according to a source familiar with the negotiations.
\u201cWe\u2019ve been working to deliver on our promise of a safer, stronger, and more prosperous America. Now we have the opportunity to pass a bill that advances all of these priorities and sets our country up for better days ahead,\u201d Thune said on the Senate floor. \u201cWe\u2019ve worked hard on this, and now it\u2019s time to deliver.\u201d
Republicans are racing to pass the 940-page bill<\/a>, which was released late Friday night and includes tax cuts, a funding boost for immigration enforcement and Medicaid cuts, among other provisions, by a self-imposed deadline of July 4.
Paul criticized the legislation for adding to the debt, calling it \u201cmuch more of a spending bill than a bill that rectifies the debt problem.\u201d
Tillis, who faces a tough re-election battle next year, has slammed the Medicaid cuts as damaging to his state, saying he \u201ccannot support this bill in its current form.\u201d
\u201cIt would result in tens of billions of dollars in lost funding for North Carolina, including our hospitals and rural communities,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cThis will force the state to make painful decisions like eliminating Medicaid coverage for hundreds of thousands in the expansion population, and even reducing critical services for those in the traditional Medicaid population.\u201d
Trump attacked Tillis on Truth Social<\/a> after his vote, saying he planned to meet with potential primary challengers to the GOP senator.
\u201cThom Tillis is making a BIG MISTAKE for America, and the Wonderful People of North Carolina!\u201d Trump wrote.
In separate social media posts, Trump also criticized Paul<\/a> while offering praise <\/a>for Johnson, Lee, Lummis and Scott.
Despite Saturday\u2019s vote, it remains unclear if the Senate, where Republicans have a 53-47 majority, will ultimately have the votes needed to pass the bill.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, voted to begin debate on the bill, but told reporters that she\u2019d file several amendments to the measure and is \u201cleaning against\u201d it on final passage unless it is substantially revised. Among the revisions she wants is to allow taxes on the highest earners to go up, a proposal that her GOP Senate colleagues are guaranteed to reject.
The legislation would extend the tax cuts Trump signed into law in 2017 and slash taxes on tips and overtime pay. It includes a $150 billion boost to military spending this year, along with a surge of federal money to carry out Trump\u2019s mass deportations and immigration enforcement agenda. It partially pays for that with cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and clean energy funding.
And it contains a $5 trillion increase in the debt ceiling ahead of an August deadline to avert a default on the country\u2019s obligations.
The GOP package also prohibits Medicaid funding for entities that provide abortions, including Planned Parenthood, seeking to make good on a long-standing conservative priority. That pursuit has faced opposition in the past from Collins and Murkowski, though it\u2019s unclear it will stop them from backing it this time. Their offices didn\u2019t return messages seeking comment.
Democrats slammed the legislation a tax cut for the rich, paid for by cutting federal programs for working-class Americans.
\u201cWhat did Republicans do in the dead of night last night? They made their bill even worse than any draft we have seen,\u201d Schumer said Saturday. \u201cWorse on health care. Worse on SNAP. Worse on the deficit. All to cater to the radicals in the House and Senate.\u201d
Republicans are seeking to pass the bill through the budget reconciliation process, which allows them to bypass the Senate\u2019s 60-vote threshold as long as certain parameters are met. The House, which passed its own version in May<\/a> where Republicans similarly can only afford three defections, also need to pass the Senate bill before it heads to Trump\u2019s desk.
Trump, who changed his plans and stayed in Washington this weekend, has already been heavily engaged in the whip effort. He has been calling senators and hosting some for meetings at the White House. On Saturday, he golfed with<\/a> Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., and Paul at his golf club in Virginia.
\u201cIt\u2019s me, Trump and Rand Paul. No casualties. We beat the evil duo of Eric Schmitt and [CIA Director] John Ratcliffe. It was a big upset,\u201d Graham joked, describing the golf outing. \u201cTrump played really well on the back, but there\u2019s a bonding experience from playing golf.\u201d
The Senate legislation seeks to resolve a standoff over the state and local tax (SALT) deduction. It lifts an existing $10,000 cap to $40,000 for five years \u2014 down from a decade in the House-passed version \u2014 before lowering it back to $10,000. That represents a significant concession for blue-state House Republicans who had insisted on solidifying the higher cap.
But it faced immediate opposition from Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., who told NBC News in a statement: \u201cWhile I support the President\u2019s broader agenda, it would be hypocritical for me to back the same unfair $10k SALT cap I\u2019ve spent years criticizing.\u201d
And the Medicaid language faces opposition from swing-district Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., who threatened Saturday to vote against<\/a> the Senate version in its current form.
The bill seeks to mitigate the pain of its Medicaid cuts on some providers by creating a rural hospital fund worth $25 billion over five years. It includes work requirements and other new rules for recipients to qualify for coverage under the program.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said he\u2019s \u201cgoing to vote yes on this bill\u201d after some last-minute changes to the Medicaid provider tax that he said are good for Missouri. Still, he said he has reservations.
\u201cThis has been an unhappy episode here in Congress, this effort to cut Medicaid. And I think, frankly, my party needs to do some soul searching. If you want to be a working-class party, you\u2019ve got to deliver for working-class people,\u201d Hawley said. \u201cYou cannot take away health care from working people. And unless this is changed going forward, that is what will happen in coming years. So I\u2019m going to do everything I can to stop that.\u201d
Sahil Kapur is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.
Scott Wong is a senior congressional reporter for NBC News.
Madyson Diaz is an intern on Capitol Hill.
Brennan Leach is a Desk Assistant for NBC News.
Frank Thorp V is a producer and off-air reporter covering Congress for NBC News, managing coverage of the Senate.
Gabrielle Khoriaty is a desk assistant in the NBC News Washington bureau.
© 2025 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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ProfileSectionsLocaltvFeaturedMore From NBCFollow NBC News news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeWASHINGTON \u2014 The Republican-led Senate on Saturday night advanced a sweeping domestic policy package for President Donald Trump\u2019s agenda after a dramatic hourslong vote, moving it one step closer to passage.The vote was 51-49, with two Republicans \u2014 Sens. Thom Tillis of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":155161,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}